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Shardell Hawkins
Area of Doctoral Study:Biochemistry
Research Advisor: Michael Summers, Ph.D.
Description of Doctoral Research:
The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV-1) packages its genome by
specific interactions between the NC domain of Gag and a ~120 nucleotide
region of the unspliced viral RNA, known as the psi-site, located
between the 5¹ LTR and the gag initiation site. The HIV-1 psi-site
contains four stem loop structures designated SL1 through SL4, connected
by relatively short linkers. Stem loops SL1 and SL2 contain the
dimer initiation site and the major splice donor site, respectively,
and SL4 contains the gag initiation condon. Molecular biological
and biochemical data indicate that all four stem loops of the HIV-1
psi-site are important for efficient encapsidation, and, in fact,
they may serve redundant roles in RNA packaging. Although the secondary
structure elements of the HIV-1 psi-site have been characterized,
little is known about the globular fold of the intact RNA. Indeed,
RNA encapsidation appears to be dependent on a higher order RNA
structure. We have established that dimerization is concentration
dependent and increased ionic strength also induces dimerization.
We are probing the structure of the psi-site by multidimensional
NMR methods. |
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